9 or 12 Bhakti Angas?

[Nityānanda dāsa]

I was thinking about the verse from the Bhagavatam, sravanam kirtanam visno smaranam... In that sloka it gives the noteworthy nava-vidha-bhakti, 9 limbs of bhakti that are very often referred to. However, that verse seems to point to another 3 limbs indirectly.

So #7 and #8 of the 9 are 'dasyam' (serving Radha Krishna) and 'sakhyam' considering Them to be one's friend. Since these two are two of the five rasas, wouldn't we also consider the other three rasas to also be limbs of Bhakti, thus making a total of 12 limbs of bhakti?

Those addition limbs being: shantam (neutrality), vatsalyam (relating to Radha Krishna as if they are one's child), and madhuryam (relating to Sri Krishna as if he is your romantic beloved lover).

Your thoughts?

[Nitaidas]

Jul 9, 2020 4:04:48 GMT -6 Nityānanda dāsa said:

I was thinking about the verse from the Bhagavatam, sravanam kirtanam visno smaranam... In that sloka it gives the noteworthy nava-vidha-bhakti, 9 limbs of bhakti that are very often referred to. However, that verse seems to point to another 3 limbs indirectly.

So #7 and #8 of the 9 are 'dasyam' (serving Radha Krishna) and 'sakhyam' considering Them to be one's friend. Since these two are two of the five rasas, wouldn't we also consider the other three rasas to also be limbs of Bhakti, thus making a total of 12 limbs of bhakti?

Those addition limbs being: shantam (neutrality), vatsalyam (relating to Radha Krishna as if they are one's child), and madhuryam (relating to Sri Krishna as if he is your romantic beloved lover).

Your thoughts?

Nice thinking, Nilamadhavadasji. I've often thought of atma-nivedana as Madhura bhakti, since that is the distinguishing characteristic between kama and preman. In kama, or sexual attraction, one seeks one's own pleasure, but in preman one seeks to give pleasure to the one one loves, disregarding one's own pleasure. That is atma-nivedana, the self-sacrificing quality of preman that touches Krsna so deeply. But then it occurs to me already that the term preman applies to all those five ways of experiencing or loving Krsna. Perhaps those are not angas, at all, since they are the very goal of bhakti-sadhana itself. Each of the nine angas, however, can be either sadhana or siddha, part of a practice program or part of one's accomplishment, that is, a natural expression of one's love of Krsna.